Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

The Predictive Ability of Dividend and Earnings Yields for Long-Term Stock Returns

We use empirical models to examine the predictive ability of dividend and earnings yields for long‐term stock returns. Results show that dividend and earnings yields share a similar predictive power for future stock returns and growth. We find that the predictive power of dividend yields increases with the return horizon, but that yields forecast future returns and growth over a much longer horizon. Finally, dividend and earnings yields exhibit high autocorrelation and strong contemporaneous relations.     

The Role of Payout Ratio in the Relationship Between Stock Returns and Dividend Yield

Abstract:   This paper examines the relationship between returns and dividend yield in the UK stock market, and introduces earnings‐related data to the asset pricing model in the form of payout ratio. The latter has a considerable effect upon the inferences which would otherwise be drawn from a study of the dividend yield‐returns relationship in the absence of such earnings information. Payout ratio conveys additional signalling information and is an important adjunct to dividend yield in explaining returns.     

送转股对股东财富的影响——基于中国上市公司的证据

以2008、2009年的送转股除权日进行事件研究,通过均值比较与检验方法,首次实证研究我国上市公司送转股后股价变化对股东财富的影响,结果发现:相对于经过调整的除权前一日的股价,2008年股票除权后,股价以高于送转股的比例单调下降;而2009年股票除权后,股价呈上升趋势,并于第14日显著高于经过调整的除权前一日的股价。除权后20天内的股价整体上高于年末股价,说明相对基于年末股价的股利决策,送转股没有降低股价。企业发放股票股利,导致股票总市值上升,增加了股东财富。     

The UK Equity Premium: 1901–2004

Abstract:  This paper examines the UK equity premium over more than a century using dividend growth to estimate expectations of capital gains employing the approach of Fama and French (2002) . Over recent decades estimated equity premia implied by dividend growth have been much lower than that produced by average stock returns for the UK market as a whole; a finding corroborated by all economic sub-sectors. The empirical analysis suggests this is primarily due to a declining discount rate, during the latter part of the 20th century, which would rationally stimulate unanticipated equity price rises during this period. Thus, I conclude that historical stock returns over recent decades have been above investors' expectations.     

The Chinese Stock Dividend Puzzle

In this paper, we examine the announcement effects of dividends with an emphasis on stock dividends in China's capital market. We find that dividend-paying stocks exhibit significantly positive abnormal returns while non-dividend-paying stocks show a negative announcement effect. Further, we document that the cumulative abnormal returns for pure stock dividends and combined dividends are the main drivers of this announcement effect. In contrast, pure cash dividend stocks experience no significant price run-up before announcement. The significant announcement effect of stock dividends is robust to controlling the earnings surprise effect. We offer some discussion of the possible explanations.     

Capital Gains, Dividend Yields, and Expected Inflation

One explanation for the negative relationship between short-horizon stock returns and inflation is that inflation proxies (inversely) for expected future real output. In this paper, I examine the possibility that inflation also proxies for variation in real price/dividend ratios (excess returns). I show that when the covariance between real price/dividend ratios and inflation is nonzero, the relationship between returns and expected inflation differs for the two components of returns: dividend yields and capital gains returns. My empirical evidence demonstrates that dividend yields and capital gains are related differently to expected inflation in U.S. and foreign markets.     

On the Predictability of Japanese Stock Returns Using Dividend Yield

The aim of this paper is to provide a critical and comprehensive reexamination of empirical evidence on the ability of the dividend yield to predict Japanese stock returns. Our empirical results suggest that in general, the predictability is weak. However, (1) if the bubble economy period (1986–1998), during which dividend yields were persistently lower than the historical average, is excluded from the sample, and (2) if positive autocorrelation in monthly aggregate returns is taken into account, there is some evidence that the log dividend yield is indeed useful in forecasting future stock returns. More specifically, the log dividend yield contributes to predicting monthly stock returns in the sample after 1990 and when lagged stock returns are included simultaneously.     

中国股票市场股利政策(英文)

本文解释了鼓励政策的定义和现今中国企业通常使用的股利政策方法。文中将对中国与西方的股利政策的异同进行对比,同时分析了具有中国特色股利政策形成的原因,并且提出了一些改善现状的意见和建议。     

红利税与印花税的连通机制研究

红利税率的多元化是引致投资者对股票估价差异性的原因之一,并且催生了现金股利除息前后的套利机会和增量交易。当现金股利水平超过某一临界值时,具有税负优势的投资者将在除息前买入股票,然后在股票除息后卖掉,以进行套利。这种交易将使得红利税发生额减少,印花税发生额增加,形成红利税与印花税之间的联通机制。     

Dividend Policy, Corporate Governance and the Managerial Entrenchment Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis

This paper analyses the agency explanation for the cross-sectional variation of corporate dividend policy in the UK by looking at the managerial entrenchment hypothesis drawn from the agency literature. Consistent with predictions, a significant U-shaped relationship between dividend payout ratios and insider ownership is observed for a large (exceeding 600 firms) sample of UK companies and two distinct periods. These results strongly suggest the possibility of managerial entrenchment when insider ownership reaches a threshold of around 30%. Evidence is also presented that non-beneficial holdings by insiders can lead to entrenchment in conjunction with shares held beneficially.     

Informed Options Trading Prior to Dividend Change Announcements

This paper investigates the information content of options trading prior to dividend change announcements. I find a positive (negative) relation between pre‐announcement abnormal implied volatility (IV) spread (abnormal IV skew) and cumulative abnormal stock returns around dividend change announcements. The predictive power of informed options trading is stronger for announcements of dividend reduction and when the options market is more liquid relative to the stock market and weaker when information has already been incorporated in the stock market. The predictability of informed options trading is robust to a placebo test and alternative measures of informed options trading. Overall results suggest that informed options trading predicts dividend change announcement returns.     

Examining the Impact of the 1986 Tax Reform Act on Corporate Dividend Policy: A New Methodology

This article introduces a new methodology to investigate the effects of the 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA) on corporate dividend policy. The methodology employs a modified version of Rozeff's (1982) model to control for the potential effect of underlying influential variables. The empirical results show there is no widespread reaction to the 1986 TRA passage on the aggregate level of dividends and only modest support for an industry-related dividend effect. We also find that firm size does not play a significant role in dividend policy reaction to the 1986 TRA.     

Dividend policy under conditions of capital market and signaling equilibria

This article develops a generalized capital asset pricing model with dividend signaling under the assumption of asymmetric information between corporate insiders and outside investors. The generalized capital asset pricing model is derived under reasonably plausible conditions that are sufficient for the existence of dividends. The model provides a theoretical framework for testing the effect of dividends on equity price and returns. Further, if dividends serve as a credible signal and the cost of signaling is positive, paying higher dividends results in higher systematic risk.     

不同收益水平上盈余信息与股利政策的交互关系研究

以沪深上市公司为样本,检验盈余信息和股利政策在不同收益上的解释作用,并深入研究盈余信息分别与现金股利、股票股利和多种分配方案等三个层面的股利政策的交互关系。结果表明:在大多数收益水平上,盈余信息和股利政策显著影响市场收益水平,而且二者之间存在显著的交互关系。具体而言,现金股利变化与盈余变化在不同收益水平上具有不同的交互影响;而股票股利与盈余信息的交互影响在各收益水平上均不十分突出;多种分配方案中的"综合政策"与盈余变动在各收益水平上表现出较大的正向交互影响。     

Dividend Yields and Stock Returns: Evidence of Time Variation between Bull and Bear Markets

This study documents persistent shifts in the relationship between stock returns and dividend yields over bull and bear markets. The shift in this relationship appears as a separate effect, distinct from the January effect, and after controlling for firm size and systematic risk. After controlling for these other factors, dividend yield is positively related to return during bear markets but negatively related to return during bull markets. This time-varying relationship between dividend yield and stock return helps to explain the anomalous results of earlier studies.     

Dividend Omissions and Intraindustry Information Transfers

We examine potential information transfers from companies that announce dividend omissions to their industry rivals. Specifically, we examine the abnormal stock returns and abnormal earnings forecast revisions of rivals after a company makes a dividend‐omission announcement. Our results show negative and significant abnormal stock returns and negative and significant abnormal forecast revisions for rival companies in response to the announcement, and a significant and positive relation between the two. We conclude that a dividend‐omission announcement transmits unfavorable information across the announcing company's industry that affects cash flow expectations and ultimately stock prices.     

Underwritten Dividend Reinvestment Plans and Conflicts of Interest

We examine conflicts of interests arising from the pricing of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) in underwritten dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). A DRIP is a type of SEO that enables shareholders automatically to reinvest their dividend entitlements in the issuing company's shares. The underwriters have an incentive to sell stock during the DRIP pricing period in order to hedge price risk and/or to reduce the price at which shares are issued. Using individual brokers’ transactions, we show that underwriting brokers engage in an abnormally high level of selling during the issue pricing period. Comparison of pricing period returns between stocks with underwritten DRIPs and a matched sample of non‐underwritten DRIPs shows that significantly more negative returns accrue to firms that have their issues underwritten.     

Dividend yields and stock returns: Implications of abnormal January returns

This study examines the empirical relation between stock returns and (long-run) dividend yields. The findings show that much of the phenomenon is due to a nonlinear relation between dividend yields and returns in January. Regression coefficients on dividend yields, which some models predict should be non-zero due to differential taxation of dividends and capital gains, exhibit a significant January seasonal, even when controlling for size. This finding is significant since there are no provisions in the after-tax asset pricing models that predict the tax differential is more important in January than in other months.     

Taxes,dividend yields and returns in the UK equity market

The higher rate of taxation on dividend income relative to capital gains has been offered as an explanation for the positive relation between stock returns and dividend yields among US firms. In the UK the relative tax rates are the reverse of those in the US. Thus, UK data provides an independent test of the tax-based approach to explaining the relation between stock returns and dividend yields. We find that high yielding stocks earn positive risk adjusted returns, whereas low yielding stocks earn negative risk adjusted returns. We also detect evidence of non-linearity in the performance of zero-dividend stocks. Controlling for firm size, seasonality and market risk we find a significant positive relation between dividend yields and returns. We conclude that the evidence is inconsistent with a tax-based explanation.